They put away the food before Carol leads Daryl to her bedroom, which is aglow with the orange light from the setting sun. Rays filter through the oval window and shimmer across the awaiting bed. Knowing it will soon be dark, she switches on the electric lantern on her nightstand, and then she turns her back to him. "Would you unzip me? Slowly?"
His fingers tremble slightly as he grips the zipper, just beneath where her hair curls upward, and she can hear his excited breath as he drags the rasping metal slowly down to her waist.
Daryl's serious about learning the new territory. He explores the peaks and valleys of her body at her command, with fingertips and tongue and mouth, maps every spot of pleasure like a cartographer storing each of her responses in the atlas of his mind. For the first time she can remember, Carol's not shy of her own pleasure. Her naked flesh flushes beneath his burning gaze, but from excitement and not from shame.
By the time she tells him that she's ready, she really is ready—wet and welcoming and whimpering—but the foreplay has gone on too long. He explodes after a single stroke, with a surprised, choked cry followed by a low moan as he finishes spilling into her. Mortified, he slides half off of her and buries his blushing face in the crook of her neck.
"Please," she murmurs, and reaches for his hand and brings it between her legs, touching a single one of his fingertips to her tingling ache. "Touch me. Like I showed you earlier."
Head still bent, embarrassment still hidden, he does, and it doesn't take long, as excited as she is. She sings a soft chorus of oh-oh-ohs, and in less than two minutes is letting out the final ohhhhhhhhh in a loud crescendo. His fingers slide away and still against her thigh as she breathes and trembles, and when her trembling stills, he slides his wet fingertips to her bare hip and rests them there instead.
She's silent for a while longer, still regulating her breath, and then she turns toward him in the narrow bed. She puts a fingertip underneath his chin, tilts his head up, and forces him to look at her in the glow of the lantern.
"Sorry," he mutters.
"Daryl," she reassures him. "I feel fantastic." She strokes his hot red cheek gently with the back of her fingers. "And you took care of me. And next time…I promise I won't make you hold out so long before we…you know. Start that part."
"Next time?" he asks. "Gonna be a next time?"
"Don't you want there to be?"
"Yeah! Yeah. Just wasn't sure, after that…performance."
She smiles. "You mean the performance that left me trembling?" She settles her head on the pillow beside him and snuggles in, moving her fingertips up along his arm, over his muscular shoulder, and then down to his bare chest. They've seen each other fully now, in all their vulnerable nakedness. She didn't ask him about his scars, and he didn't ask about hers. But she does ask about his tattoos. "What do they mean?"
"Mean I was twenty and drunk and stupid and willing to let Merle's girlfriend practice on me."
"That's all? What about those demons on your back? There's no special meaning behind those? I mean…why did you pick demons?"
"Didn't. She picked."
"You just let Merle's girlfriend tattoo whatever she wanted on your back?"
He shrugs. "She was putting a roof over our heads. We were living in her house. Hell, even had my own bedroom. Usually I got the living room couch when we stayed with one of Merle's girls. Figured I better let 'er if I didn't want to be sleeping in the truck again."
"She was a tattoo artist?"
"Was trying to get good enough to open her own shop. And once she did, and she was making good money at it, she kicked Merle to the curb. Mostly 'cause he stole money from her to buy meth." He sighs. "Wish I could of seen him, you know, who he became in that place. Woodbury."
"It sounds like he became a hero."
"Yeah. Reckon he did."
Carol kisses him softly on the forehead. "Do you want to have some kind of memorial service here? We could put a little monument or something."
"Nah. Ain't no one here wants to mourn Merle but me."
"I do. With you. If it helps you."
"I'm fine," he assures her.
"You don't have to be. Not with me."
"I know. But I am."
Her stomach growls loudly, and now she's the one to flush in embarrassment.
"Need to feed you," he says with a smile.
"Feed me allllll night long," she sings.
He gives her a puzzled look.
"Little Shop of Horrors?"
He shakes his head.
"You've never seen Little Shop of Horrors?"
"Nah."
"Well, we're going to have to rectify that. I think we have the DVD in our collection. Let's go get something to eat and watch it. Finish our date."
"A'ight."
[*]
Daryl, in nothing but a pair of solid black boxers and his white muscle shirt, is picking out the unburnt bits of the quail when Carol comes out of the bedroom in his button-down charcoal gray shirt, the tail of which falls just below her thighs. "Aren't you cold?" she asks.
"Still cooling off."
"Well, I'm going to have to get a blanket when we watch the movie. Or put on some pants and socks."
"Blanket," he insists. "Like you with your pants off."
She smiles and sets the portable DVD player up on the coffee table before going through their stack of DVDs. "What are you making us?"
"Quail pot pie." He tosses the last of the salvageable quail meat in the pot on the stove, on top of the glop of Campbell's condensed cream of chicken soup he's already put in there. "But just the inside." He pours in the leftover green beans they didn't eat yet. "Without the pie part." He turns on the burner and begins to stir it all together.
"Sounds good."
He watches her as she bends over to load the player. The shirt creeps up a little, revealing a hint of her black panties. He likes her in his shirt. Better even than he did in that dress he slowly stripped her of in the bedroom. There's just something about her standing there, wearing his shirt like some kind of trophy. He can feel himself stirring, and glances down to make sure nothing's popping out of the flap of his boxers. He's determined to ignore his desire, because she wants to finish their date. He fucked up the first half of it. He's going to try hard not to fuck up the second.
"Got a second bottle of wine," he says. "This one was only $75, but maybe the cork ain't defective."
"I'd love a glass."
Soon, they're both settled on the couch, sitting side by side, with bowls of quail pot pie filling on their laps atop the blanket that's spread out over their legs, wine glasses on the table, movie playing.
"This isn't half bad," she tells him after a bite. "The cream of chicken helped make it more moist."
"My mama's recipe," he tells her. "She made every damn meal with Campbell's condensed soup."
"Oh yeah? Like what?"
"Glop over rice with squirrel and cream of mushroom."
Carol winces.
"Glop over rice with possum and cream of celery."
Carol's face contorts still more. "Possum? Before the apocalypse?"
"Glop over noodles with gator and cream of shrimp."
"I didn't even know they made cream of shrimp."
"Glop over toast with venison and cream of chicken."
"Did you never buy meat from the grocery store?"
"Sometimes, yeah. When we had money or food stamps. But m'dad and Merle hunted a lot of our food. And me, too, when I's older. But my mom was gone by then." He scoops another bite out of his bowl.
Daryl wolfs down his food and sets the empty bowl on the table to pick up his wine glass. He takes a cautious sip. "Think this is okay," he ventures.
Carol leans forward, sets her now empty bowl down on the table, and picks up her glass of wine. After a sip, she concludes, "Better than okay." Then she slides a little closer, until her shoulder is touching his. She leans her head on his shoulder for about a minute, and then raises it again to sip her wine.
The movie plays on for a good five more minutes before she says, "Would you put your arm around me?"
He feels stupid for not thinking of it himself. That's probably why she leaned her head on his shoulder, a hint at what she wanted. He drapes his arm around her, and she snuggles in.
The movie goes on for another ten minutes, and he starts to wonder how long he's supposed to keep his arm around her like this. The answer, apparently, is until their wine glasses are empty and the movie is half over, which is when she stands up to refill their glasses. When she sits down again, she leans back against the arm of the couch instead of against him, and she puts her feet up on his lap.
"That's a hint," she tells him five minutes later.
"What the venus flytrap said?" He points to the screen.
"No, Pookie, my feet in your lap."
"You wanna give me a footjob?" He smirks. "Go ahead. I ain't stopping you."
"You know I want a foot rub!"
"Hell I got to rub your feet for? I already got laid."
She glowers. He chuckles, leans forward to put his wine glass on the table, and then snakes his hands under the blanket to begin rubbing one of her feet. "You're gonna be high maintenance," he tells her. "Can already tell."
"But I'm worth it, aren't I?" she teases.
"Yeah," he says, but he's not teasing. "You are. You really are."
She gives him a look like she's about to cry, but it's a happy look. He can tell that much. He's a little uncomfortable with the strength of the moment. So, as he gently digs a knuckle into the bottom of her foot he says, "Mean, who else would put up with a one-pump chump, right?"
She closes her eyes. "Don't worry. I'll get you up to three pumps next time."
"Pffft."
The massage begins at her feet, but it moves up her legs, and beneath the tail of that charcoal gray shirt. After rubbing her thighs—which she parts for him—he dares to snake a fingertip beneath the edge of her black panties.
"Please...Suck your finger first," she asks breathily.
"What?"
"Like you do sometimes after you've eaten."
He pulls his hand out from under the blanket and sucks three of his fingers, one by one, with a smack, like he's cleaning them of food. He's puzzled by the way she's watching him, as if she likes to see it. Soon, his hand is back under the blanket, and by now, the movie is nothing but background noise. He's not watching it. He's watching her, with her head thrown back. Before he can bring her to climax though, she pulls away. She gets up from the couch and stands before him, where she slips off her panties from beneath the shirt.
"Oh, hell yeah," he says as he flips the blanket off of his lap. This time he doesn't wait for direction. The panties on the floor are hint enough. He slides his boxers to his knees to free his erection, and then she's mounting him. A knee on either side of the cushion, and her hands gripping the back of the couch, she rides him as he holds her by the hips and watches her take her pleasure.
When she moans and bites down on her lip, he has to close his eyes. If he watches her, he'll cum too soon. He holds out, just barely, until he feels the first pulse of her orgasam around him, and then he makes one final thrust and cums with her.
They're both still ridding down the crest of that wave when a voice drifts down from the deck above. It's Rick, yelling Carol's name.
"Fuck off!" Daryl roars back.
"The baby!" Rick cries down. "Lori's having the baby!"
"Shit!" Carol curses, slides off of Daryl, and scrambles for her underwear. "Let me grab my bag!" she calls up the ladder. "I'll be right there! I'll meet you there!" And then she rushes to the bedroom to finish dressing, leaving Daryl panting on the couch.